


1993

by afra_schatz



Series: Doesn't paint in town AU [2]
Category: lord of the rings rps
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2012-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-29 07:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afra_schatz/pseuds/afra_schatz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - Second story in the verse in which Sean is a painter and Orlando is his muse. Set in 1993.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1993

I have a friend who injured his back in a motorcycle accident. Can’t move anything waist down. He’s one of those positive thinking blokes though, after a few months he started making jokes about us hiding the beer in the upper regions of the fridge where he couldn’t reach it because of his wheelchair.

Just once, after we got royally plasterd during a footie game on telly, he told me when it is bad. First thing in the morning and sometimes during the day when, just for a second, he simply forgets. When he is about to get up to take a piss or something equally mundane and his legs just won’t move. No telling them, no cursing and no begging helps.

Doesn’t count how much you want something if you just can’t do it.

I am a painter. Canvases not walls, though lately there isn’t much difference. I do some commissions to pay the rent but it is going through the motions, all technique and no inspiration, no heart whatsoever. Most of the times I just sit around and stare at my hands. The only colour on them is not acrylic paint or oil, but yellowish stain, evidence of too much smoking. I look at my hands and yeah, I can wriggle my fingers, flick my wrists but all the same I feel paralysed, cut off from the important nerve that was my creativity.

No need to tell me how pathetic that is. I know that. No behaviour for a 34 year old.

As it is, I am doing a shit job at pulling myself together, judging from the worried glances I receive from my mates and my baby brother in particular. He is he one who’s packed my bags and sent me off on a holiday in France. To clear my head and do something against my grey skin, he said. To get rid of me at least temporarily, I silently added like some petulant child, but took my stuff and ended up in some little village in the south. Hardly anyone here speaks English but I reckon that is just as well, lowers the chances of me whining to some poor stranger about my creative crisis.

I still can’t bear looking at my hands, though. Now, I spend hours and hours of the days staring at the ocean, at vintages in the mountains, at kids playing with street mutts, at sunsets and sundowns.

And feel absolutely nothing.

No joy, no excitement, not even anger.

Nothing.

***

A friend of my mum is into that spiritual stuff and he once said that I have an old soul. Not that I believe in any of that new age shit, especially not when the bloke in the liquor store doesn’t give a flying fuck about old souls.

I am not gonna say that my life sucks just because of that of course. Would be kind of lame, even for a sixteen year old, and even though people my age have a tendency to behave like moping crybabies.

If I had had a say in it, though, I would maybe have emigrated and become a crocodile farmer in Australia. That would’ve been cool, despite the most plausible fact that one of my darlings would have bitten one of my hands off by now. Or maybe, I would have become a smuggler of candy bars, supplying those poor kids in American de-fat camps or whatever they call them.

Anyways, as it is, my life hasn’t been so much of a pain in the arse, it has just been a plain bore for the last sixteen years. Like when you accidentally leave the VCR on record on a weekday morning. You end up with kilometres of stuff you might as well tape over right away.

It’s alright though because it’s over now anyway. Not that anyone really knows about this so far because I haven’t finished school yet and am supposed to go to uni right after. But tell you what, I’m not going to. First day of summer break I packed my bags and hitchhiked through France until I found a place in the south with nice waves for surfing and a little fish restaurant to work in. Learning French can’t be that difficult, I told myself and of course I was right.

‚Learn for life’, that’s what they tell us in school over and over. But I reckon it is about time that I stop with the preparations and start living for real.

You don’t learn how to skydive from reading Superman comics either, do you? No, you don’t.

***

It is early afternoon and Sean’s feet have carried him to a little café, the same one he has come to over the last week. Habits form themselves quickly when there is nothing else to do. He has ordered a cup of tea and both he and the young waitress have smiled at how long it still takes them to understand one another. The British newspaper he has bought on the way lies unread and headline down on the small round table, the sugar pot put on top to keep it from flying away. Sean’s hair is a little too long, he keeps blond strands tugged behind his ear, his clothes are picked out with the carelessness of an artist or the choicelessness of a dropout.

Seagulls cry and disappear behind the roofs of little white houses where the harbour and the fish market are. Ugly but friendly mutts lie at the feet of their little human companions and sleepily watch lean and shabby streetcats pass by. They stroll over the square place in front of the cafe and lie down in a sunny corner to lick their private parts because what else is there to do.

On the few steps that lead to a statue of some local hero slouches a group of surfer boys in their late teens, licking ice cream from cones. They cuff one another with sticky fingers against darkly tanned naked shoulders and don’t seem to mind the heat.

Orlando tells a story, changing flawlessly between English, French and international explanatory gesturing, and the other boys listen to him with open mouths or raised eyebrows. They collectively burst into laughter when Orlando throws both arms in the air, finishing his joke with an exuberant gesture, and he joins them with a grin. He rubs his hands through the curls of his mohawk, the heat has dried them already.

Like sea stars the boys can’t go long without water and leave their spot in the sun to the cats once more, their surf boards under their arms, their giggles echoing from the walls. Walking Orlando is asked to retell part of his story and he does so happily. Near the end, just when they have reached the café, Orlando automatically repeats the gesture, too. His board knocks hard against Sean’s small round table.

***

Your teacup slithers towards the edge of the table before either of us can move. The fragile china shatters on the cobble stone and I flinch, try to get my board out of the way and nearly knock you out with it.

“Careful, careful,” you say and hold out your hands as if to protect your body. My mates snicker – not to self: kill them later – but you smile at me. That makes me blush even deeper than the latest demonstration of my clumsiness did and isn’t that odd? Not, it’s not and you wouldn’t look at me all confused now if you knew how lovely that little smile of yours is.

”You alright?” You ask when I don’t answer but simply stare at you. You search for the right words in French, “Es’que tu –“

“Sorry,” I blurt out, belatedly, “I uhm, I broke your cup.” Smooth, Orlando.

One of my mates makes a joke in French that I only half understand but I still hit him ‘accidentally’ with my board. Laughing they walk on, indicating me to follow later.

I turn around and find you crouched down on your knees, picking up the sharp pieces. I lean my board against the table and kneel down next to you, the rough stone scraping against my knees.

“I’m so sorry,” I repeat, “I’ll pay for it of course – I’m Orlando by the way.”

You grunt quietly, the audible equivalent to a forgiving shrug and I want to take that little sound, stuff it in my pocket and run away with it. How silly is that?

“Sean,” you introduce yourself and hold the shattered little bits of cup carefully in the palm of your left hand. “It’s just a mug, no harm done.”

Together we pick up the fragments and place them on your sports paper. You wipe your hands on your track pants and look at them for a long moment. Are you checking for cuts? I hope there are none, would be a shame because you have the most amazing hands. They look like they could cradle a kitten and make the little beast purr within seconds. They look like they could knock someone out cold with one blow, too.

“Uhm,” you say with something that sounds warmer than amusement. I realize that I have grabbed your hands, searching them for injuries.

‘Just checking for cuts,’ I mean to say. What I do in fact say is, “You got great hands.” Fuck can I sound any more like a psychopath?

You look at me strangely for a long moment and I hold your gaze, determined to stare away the unexplained tiredness.

“Sorry,” I say for what must be the nth time today, and feel like a complete idiot.

Once again you just smile at me and respond, “Don’t be.”

I’m still holding your hands. Thing is, I don’t think I can let them go again.

***

You tell me four different versions of your life – past, present and future – within the first hour in that café. You’re a restaurant tester, a salesman, a millionaire and a surfing pro. Only in the middle of story three I realize that you’ve included me in each one of them, turning me into a chef, a pilot, a banker and a surfer guru with false teeth.

When I ask you about that you shrug, slouch a little deeper into the chair opposite of mine and say, “I have truckloads of lives in my head waiting for someone to live them. I thought I could give you some in exchange for that cup and the Orangina.”

I smile and ask, “And I could do with a new life or two?”

You just look at me and there’s an understanding in your eyes that should be impossible for someone your age, for anyone really. It lasts a second or two, then your face changes and you get up, 16 and skinny and jumpy again. I exhale and feel as if I had been holding my breath for a very long time.

“Come on,” you say and pick up your surfboard, “I’ll show you where surfer-guru-you is going to have his hut on the beach.”

You grab my hand again and drag me along, flashing me a reassuring smile that I didn’t need but gladly accept nevertheless. You know all the secret places of the village but your accent clearly says Southern England not France. I don’t ask because you’ll tell me the real version of your life eventually, I know that.

It is evening when you have to leave to change clothes for work and the light is not the best and all the shops are closed by now. It doesn’t matter that the light bulbs in my hotel room give off only dim light and that the only supplies I can get are the watercolours from my landlady’s little daughter. I promise to buy her new ones come tomorrow and start to paint.

I stop when I run out of colours and I don’t have to look at the pictures to be content with them. Instead I look at my hands and their backs are graced with smudges of yellow and blue, the right holds a chewed on kids brush.

Being paralysed means one can’t move, one doesn't respond to any impulse. The grip of your fingers is strong and sure out of instinct when you take me by the hand. I can still feel it.


End file.
